


Horns Up

by Gimmemocha



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition, Dragon Age: Inquisition - Trespasser
Genre: Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-09-16
Packaged: 2018-04-21 03:05:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812611
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gimmemocha/pseuds/Gimmemocha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>SPOILERS FOR TRESPASSER! Set sometime not long after the end of that DLC. Do not read this if you intend to play Trespasser. Here endeth the warning. Mature for language, mostly.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Horns Up

**Author's Note:**

> So, yeah, Trespasser blew me away. My socks still haven't come to earth. I'm still not 100% convinced it was Solas who took the Inquisitor's arm, and not her chopping it off herself as a way to get rid of his control & the mark, but either way... My Trevelyan is a rogue. One that fights dual-weapon. She picks locks. She closes rifts. And now? Now she can't do any of that, and though she put on a brave front when she told the Exalted Council to go fuck itself (chose the "We'll do it ourselves" option), it just can't be that easy. Fortunately, she's still got Bull. Tal-Vashoth FTW!
> 
> Also, I have one prompt I promised to answer I'm still working on, and an alternate history story about what happens if Neria never went to Kirkwall, but this? This demanded to be written.

It was late, late enough that had they still been at Skyhold, no one would have heard her. If she'd she still had two arms, she would have been sleeping.

But they weren't, and she didn't. So Evelyn Trevelyan was practicing.

One hand, one arm, threw everything she knew off-balance. She had trained from her earliest moments with a weapon to use two long daggers. She had picked locks for fun. She was a master assassin.

Or had been.

Now, she had to start all over. 

One sword felt heavy, unwieldy in her hand. She had no option to use a two-handed grip, and hadn't developed the right sort of strength to take and deliver punishing blows like Cassandra or Cullen or Thom. Her way was light, quick, slashing and dodging.

She felt clumsy, hacking away at the wooden stake Bull had set up for her in the farmyard.

And she hated it.

She hated all of it.

Evelyn put all her strength into one vicious slam at the stake. The reverberations echoed up the sword and into her hand. She lost her grip, had no other hand to compensate though her reflexes still sent her truncated left arm, empty after the elbow, forward.

The sword fell to the soft earth with a muffled thump.

Evelyn bit back her frustration, her anger, her tears, and leaned her head against the stake.

"Kadan."

She didn't look back. "Go to sleep," she said.

"Can't. Got all used to our bed, now I can't sleep without a naked woman next to me."

She didn't respond, didn't want to until the tears stopped dribbling out of her. She didn't want him to see her cry, to see her weakness.

"Kadan—" 

"Don't," she interrupted. "I don't want to hear it. I don't want to hear how I can overcome this, I don't want to hear how others have it worse, I don't want to hear that people still want to follow me. Just… Just don't, Bull."

His hand stroked her shoulder.

She twitched away.

Without comment, he clamped his fingers down and spun her around, pulling her into his arms.

Evelyn started to lift her arms to hold him, then stopped and dropped them again. Well, dropped one arm and one stump. Fresh tears fell on his broad chest. "I can't even hold you now," she whispered.

"You never could get your arms around me," he said against her hair. "This doesn't change that."

Anger flared and she shoved away from him. "Don't make this a joke!"

He brought her back against him in a flex of muscle that drove the air from her lungs. "It's not a joke. It's self-pity. And I understand that, we all do, so we're giving you time. But your time is about up, Kadan."

She didn't relax against him, didn't answer, and he didn't let her go.

"You think I care about half an arm? At least you can see from all sides. At least you can move without a metal brace holding your ankle together."

"I said I don't—"

"Evelyn."

Her lips closed, a thin, tight line. Still stiff in his arms, she nonetheless quieted.

"I know exactly what you want, what you think you want. Have you forgotten who I am? You'll get past this, because you don't know how to back up. You don't know how to give up."

"Solas is a good teacher."

He let her go, just enough so he could frown down at her. "You're going to let that asshole win?"

Evelyn looked away, at the empty farmyard where they were hiding out for now. Skyhold was lost to her; he had taken even that away from her. Solas knew to look for her there. For all she knew, he knew the keep better than she did, knew how to come and go without being seen, and she couldn't risk it. So she and a handful of trusted friends had slipped out. Bull was now in charge of making sure messages got to Cassandra and Leliana.

He was the only one she trusted against Solas, his was the only mind and wit she wanted to pit against the elf-god.

Until she could convince him that he didn't have to destroy this world to make a better one.

Or come up with a way to kill him, if she couldn't convince him.

"No," she said. "But…"

Bull nodded a little. "Go on. Say it. You'll feel better when you stop trying to hide it from everyone."

"But I think he already has. I think he's already beaten me, anyway." 

Now he let her go, let her pace away. "In one move, he took the anchor, took all my ability to fight, all my… my power." The words flew out of her, escaped at last from the dark, ugly cage that burned in her chest. "I can't fight, can't use the rifts, I'm useless now. I can't even pick a fucking lock!" She spun to face him, stretched her arm-and-a-half out. "Look at me. Look at me! What am I now? Not Inquisitor, not Herald, not assassin. Nothing. One move, that's all it took. One master stroke, and I am nothing."

"And you think you can't win. So all that shit you said when you told the Council that we'd handle it ourselves, when you said the Inquisition started with no allies, no power. It wasn't about the organization, you said. It was about people doing what was necessary. That was all crap."

"No, of course not, but…"

"You think they followed you because you could pick locks? Because you could fight? The Inquisition had a thousand fighters, and a hundred lock-pickers."

"The anchor—"

"Was how you closed rifts. Now they're closed. We don't need it anymore. And if they just wanted you to do that, they'd have kept you in the dark and ignorant until they needed one closed, then trotted you out to do your trick and locked you up again."

He folded his arms over his chest. She wondered briefly if he weren't showing off, what the gesture was meant to say. "They didn't follow you because you're an assassin, Evelyn. They followed you because you lead. You think. You inspire. And Inquisition or not, if you call, they'll follow you again."

"Oh yes, all the spies will follow me and report right back to their fucking killer god. I'm such a good leader, they couldn't wait to betray me to him."

"One, he's not a god. You saw it. He said it. Two, you've already beaten one false god. Might as well go for the two-fer."

"I beat the first one with the anchor."

In one stride, he closed the distance between them and twhapped her in the head with one broad palm. "You beat him with forethought. You beat him in a thousand ways, at a thousand crossroads, cutting his feet out from under him at every turn. You planned, you took advantage of weakness, and you never stopped going for his throat. When he blocked you, you went around. When he stabbed at you, you slipped by him. And if Solas thinks he can do better, he never played chess against you.

"You're going to beat Solas too, Kadan. If I didn't think you would, I'd drag you off to the farthest corner of Thedas. There is no more Inquisitor. There is no more Inquisition. Your life is mine, and I won't let you throw it away."

She didn't believe him. Not quite. Not yet. "You know the Qunari are coming, too."

"Mm. Yeah. I don't know about that. Some of those letters you found... Viddisala wasn't right in the head by the end of it. I don't know if we should believe anyone had any idea what she was planning."

Evelyn shook her head. "There were antaam with her, not just Ben-Hassrath. That means the Arishok was involved at some level."

"Or they were just following orders. Don't get me wrong, they're good in a fight but they're not the sharpest swords on the rack. Someone like Viddisala shows up and barks a few orders at them, they're going to do what she says unless they have orders not to."

Hints of something brushed the corners of her mouth. "No wonder you never became a soldier. You're terrible at following orders."

He buried a hand in her hair, raking through the disarrayed strand with broad fingers. "I'm much, much better at giving them." He bent slightly to kiss her.

Evelyn stopped him, her one hand flat on his chest. "No," she said.

His growl was audible. "Woman, do you know how long it's been?"

"I just… I can't."

"Wanna bet?"

"It doesn't bother you at all?" she asked, looking up at him, frowning. "It bothers me. I hate it. I hate thinking that I can't hold you or that I'll only have one hand to touch you with."

He shook her head lightly, his fingers still in her hair. "No, what bothers you is that you think I won't want you. You think it makes you ugly. A freak. You think I only want to fuck you out of pity."

To hear all her fears, fears she thought were secret, spoken so openly, made her heart crawl in her chest, as if it could find some spot more hidden, more safe. Somewhere away from his insight.

"I knew this one pirate once," he said, "had her leg taken clean off. Right here." His finger drew a line from the v of her crotch to her hip, up her left leg. "Got around on a long wooden stick. She was a demon in the hammock, though. No leg to get in the way. Made for some interesting positions."

"I don't want to hear about that."

"You sure? Because sometimes she kept the stick on so we could—"

"Bull!"

"I'm just saying you've still got two tits. And if you lost those, you'd still have your—"

"Don't say it."

"What? I was going to say 'ass'."

"You are not fucking me in the ass, we've talked about that. I will vanish out of that so fast…"

"Mm. A challenge." He pulled her close again. This time, she didn't stop him when he kissed her. "Who you are is not in your arm. You are still Evelyn Trevelyan. You are still my kadan. And I still really, really want to fuck you."

"Smooth-talker," she murmured, only then realizing that she was smiling. Smiling for what felt like the first time since she and Solas had parted in the Crossroads with the world lying between them.

"Tell me you love me."

"I do love you."

"Who owns you?"

She felt her cheeks warm. "You do."

"Then come to bed, like the obedient property I trained you to be."

"In a minute," she promised. "I want to get this right."

"Gah. Should have spanked you more." He shoved her away. "Fine. Then at least stop using that giant lump of pot metal." He walked to the pile of supplies, unpacked to spare the horses carrying them but ready to repack in an instant if they needed to. From within one of the packs, he drew her double-bladed dagger.

No, she realized. Not hers. It was longer, the grip more rounded and padded, contoured.

"Here," he said, handing it to her. "Worked on this with Dagna. She's got a few other surprises up her tiny little sleeves, but this one was ready before we left."

Evelyn took it, felt the weight and balance of it. It fit her right hand perfectly. Curious, fascinated, she gave it a quick flip in her hand, studied the motion of the blades. 

"It's meant to be used one-handed. Seen a few of those. Some of the pirates use 'em. Only most people have to make sure their other arm doesn't get in the way. Not a problem you'll have."

He walked past her to the wooden post. "Not much different than that dagger you used to use. One blade, then the other. Try it."

Evelyn walked slowly back to the post, holding the blade. Slow and careful, she slashed at the post with one side of the blade, pulling it free to use the opposite side.

"Nah, come on, Evelyn. You know better than that. It's not wrist, it's hip, waist, shoulder, _then_ wrist." He stepped behind her and took her hips in his hands, made her pivot with the blow. "Again."

With something very like the stirrings of hope, Evelyn shifted her stance. The blows fell faster this time.

"Again."

It was late, late enough that had they still been at Skyhold, no one would have heard them.

"Again. Put some back into it!"

If she'd still had two arms, they would have been sleeping.

"Again! You've still got both feet, use 'em."

But they weren't, and she didn't. 

"Faster. Show me you can beat that asshole with one hand behind your back."

So Evelyn Trevelyan was fighting.


End file.
